Milda Tylaite
Associate Professor in Accounting @ Stockholm School of Economics
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Quick facts
Quick facts
Associate Professor in Accounting
Program Director for MSc. in Accounting, Valuation, and Financial Management
Email: milda.tylaite@hhs.se
Research interests
Research interests
Corporate Taxation
Financial Reporting
Auditing
Corporate Governance
Private Firms
Scholarships, grants, and teaching awards
Scholarships, grants, and teaching awards
Bertil Edlund Foundation scholarship for a research visit at the London School of Economics and Political Science in March-June 2025.
Award for outstanding pedagogical achievements for redesigning the course ”3305 - Current Issues in Financial Reporting” in October 2023.
Sven-Erik Johansson Foundation scholarship for data acquisition, awarded in May 2022.
Bertil Edlund Foundation scholarship for a research visit at WHU- Otto Beisheim School of Management in Sept-Oct 2021.
Wallander scholarship by Jan Wallanders and Tom Hedelius Stiftelse (the Handelsbanken foundation) awarded in 2019.
Research exchange grant by the Nordic Tax Research Council for a research stay at WHU- Otto Beisheim School of Management in March-June 2020.
Seed Funding by the Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (2018) for a pilot study on the interplay between corporate tax behavior and CSR choices in listed Swedish firms.
Publications
The Choice of Accounting Standards under Competing Tax and External Reporting Preferences: Evidence from Intangible Asset Reporting in Small Private Firms with N.Hellman and Jamil Najjar.Forthcoming @ European Accounting Review. In 2014, all Swedish small private firms (legal entities) were required to choose between an external reporting-oriented standard (K3) based on IFRS for SMEs (2009 version) and a simplified reporting standard designed to minimize tax-accounting differences (K2). Using this shock to the reporting environment, we study firms’ reporting choices in the context of competing tax and external reporting preferences. We provide direct evidence of the role these preferences play in firm-level reporting and, in several ways, highlight the importance for such firms to be able to report internally generated intangible assets. Our results also suggest that these reporting choices are oriented towards stakeholders other than credit providers. We present important insights for standard setters and regulators reviewing the reporting requirements applicable to private firms.Publications
“The Impact of Client Bankruptcies on Auditors’ Judgment and Future Audit Engagements
with Mariya Ivanova and Liwei Zhu. Forthcoming @European Accounting Review.We examine whether and how engagements with bankrupt clients (i.e., bankruptcy experiences) affect auditors’ behavior in future engagements. Using a large sample of Swedish auditors-in-charge (AICs), we find that AICs’ bankruptcy experiences are positively related to the issuance of going-concern opinions to financially distressed clients, audit fees, and clients’ earnings quality. Our evidence implies that such experiences increase AICs’ conservatism and professional skepticism and contribute to higher audit quality. We also show that AICs’ bankruptcy experiences are associated with more conservative client management strategies—the lower (higher) likelihood of accepting (resigning from) financially distressed clients. Furthermore, we find that the impact of bankruptcy experiences on AICs’ decision-making is stronger when those experiences are more salient and recent, as well as when they are followed by a sanction. Overall, our findings indicate that AICs who have experienced client bankruptcies deliver higher audit quality and exhibit a greater level of conservatism in client selection, providing novel evidence on how individual auditors’ auditing styles are shaped by their professional experiences.with M.Ivanova and H.Nilsson. @ Journal of Business Finance & Accounting Using a large sample of Swedish private firms, we investigate the link between directors’ and CEOs’ prior corporate bankruptcy experiences and the financial risk of their current firms. We find that firms with such directors and CEOs have higher levels of financial risk. In particular, they exhibit more aggressive corporate financial policies, have higher corporate bankruptcy risk, and are subject to higher effective interest rates. Overall, our findings are in line with the personal risk-preference explanation, showing that both corporate bankruptcy experiences and current corporate risk-taking reflect stable personal risk preferences. The presence of directors with prior bankruptcy experiences could thus be interpreted as a signal of higher financial risk for their firms. This insight is of relevance to regulators, lenders, and corporate decision-makers. with N.Hellman, H. Nilsson, and D. Vural-Meijer @ European Accounting Review. Best paper award at 2021 EAR Annual Conference. In 2014, all larger Swedish private firms were required, at short notice, to adopt a new reporting standard (K3) based on IFRS for SMEs (2009 version). Using this shock to the reporting environment, we study the effects of the new reporting standard on groups’ financial reporting properties and cost of debt financing. We find that, following the introduction of K3, private groups exhibit reporting changes consistent with improved accounting quality; their financial statement comparability increases; and their cost of debt declines. Our results suggest that the cost-of-debt decline is related to changes in accounting numbers that are imputed to lending models. Our findings add to the literature on factors shaping private firms’ financial reporting and inform the ongoing discussion on accounting regulation for private firms.with R.Wilson and T.Dong. @ Accounting and Business Research This paper examines whether the status of the financial statement audit, as either voluntary or mandatory, is related to the corporate tax avoidance behaviour of private firms. Using the Swedish audit regime shift in 2010 which removed mandatory audit requirements for small private companies, we find that voluntarily audited firms exhibit a 19% decrease in total income tax burden relative to firms subject to mandatory audit following the regulatory change. This decrease corresponds to an average SEK 15,000 (approximately 1,500 euros) lower tax payment and is driven primarily by increasing conforming tax avoidance. We also find that increasing tax avoidance in voluntarily audited firms occurs, at least partly, due to impaired auditor independence under the voluntary audit regime. Finally, we show that the non-tax costs of tax avoidance restrict these tax-driven reporting changes. Our findings contribute to the literature on auditors’ constraining effect on corporate tax avoidance as well as to the debate over the costs and benefits of a mandatory financial statement audit regime..Executives’ Personal Tax Behavior and Corporate Tax Avoidance Consistency.
with T. Hjelström, J-P. Kallunki, and H.Nilsson. Published at European Accounting Review. Runner-up for the 2020 EAR best paper award. We analyze executives’ (CEOs, CFOs, and Board Chairpersons) personal tax returns to investigate whether and how their personal tax behavior is associated with the tax avoidance of their firms. We develop various measures of executives’ personal tax behavior that are related to their personal risk propensity, ethics, financial incentives, and awareness of tax planning opportunities and risks. Our empirical results show that CEOs’ and CFOs’ personal tax behavior is related both to nonconforming and conforming corporate tax avoidance. We find no such results for Board Chairpersons.with T. Dong and H.Nilsson. In "Sweden through the Crisis", Stockholm School of Economics.We discuss how auditors can provide value to credit institutions. We specifically point to two factors; the importance of the going concern opinions in credit risk assessments and that more attention should be paid to modified audit opinions that concern internal control weaknesses (ICWs). We end by suggesting that a mandatory financial audit requirement for firms that receive government-guaranteed loans should be considered.
Selected work-in-progress
Selected work-in-progress
“Practical Expedients – A Valid Tool in IFRS Standard-Setting?”. With Niclas Hellman, Heidi Hiltunen, and Johanna Lindegren. Presented at the IASB Research Forum 2024. R&R at Abacus.
with Mariya Ivanova and Annalisa Prencipe.
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